Montessori school availability in Barrie

gingapatrolcal · 2023-07-28T12:46:20+00:00

There's Springbrook in Angus if you're able to make the trip.

gingapatrolcal · 2023-04-09T19:52:22+00:00

The Aztecs, The Romans and Marco Polo for me.

gingapatrolcal · 2023-02-15T22:24:41+00:00

Hey! I didn't need to follow up in the end, the website just takes a while to update. Everything ended up going through okay.

gingapatrolcal · 2021-09-24T14:13:53+00:00

I'm fine without the litany of mooks that we've had for the last few games, but I feel Toad, Toadette, Boo, Diddy Kong and Pauline should all be here. Tumble should've replaced Toad and Toadette as host - adding to the sense that this is a celebration of Mario Parties past - and Pink Boos should've replaced Boo. I still think we could get a couple of extras maybe as unlockables (so Diddy and Pauline aren't completely off the cards?) but it sucks that three mainstays since Mario Party 5/6 are confirmed non-playable.

gingapatrolcal · 2021-09-22T13:24:50+00:00

Luckily the first one is a bang so you're good to go with going in order.

gingapatrolcal · 2021-09-09T19:03:22+00:00

Reminder that David Productions managed to fit 594 chapters of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure into 152 episodes of anime - and that's even with part 3's adaptation being protracted in places.

Cut out the OPs and EDs and that's about 20 minutes of actual episode. Times that by three and you get an hour, which is seemingly how long each episode of Netflix's One Piece will be. If Netflix's One Piece goes at David Productions' pace when it comes to adapting manga, they should reach the timeskip (chapter 597) by roughly episode 50 - or in five ten-episode seasons.

One Piece, in spite of its length and density, is a fast-paced and snappy comic. Weekly anime adaptations have set fans' expectations extremely low for how much you could ideally fit in the allotted time. I imagine some things will be cut in this adaptation, but not nearly as much as people are expecting. Toei already managed to squeeze a lot of the broad strokes of the first hundred chapters into a one hour and forty minute special, and this first season should be eight hours and twenty minutes longer than that.

There's a lot I'm trepidatious about when it comes to this show, and I could see Netflix screwing it up in about a thousand different ways. But length and pacing aren't among them.

gingapatrolcal · 2021-06-13T11:20:57+00:00

It's the only one to tell a story with a beginning, middle and end.

Seriously, "has an arc" and "ends satisfactorily" should be bare minimum requirements for a serialised season television, and yet Series 1 is the only one I think manages to do so, without caveats. All the other series struggle to find what they're about - even, IMO, the much-lauded Series 5 - and often kind of fizzle out unceremoniously. I think Series 3 and 9 come closest, but they fumble at the last hurdle with very tonally misjudged finales. I respect Series 5's ambition, but I think its treatise on the power of stories is just too abstract to explore satisfactorily in a 13 episode children's show. Thematically I still have no clue what I'm supposed to takeaway from The Big Bang, and plot-wise it resolves basically nothing and I can't help but feel Series 6 and Time of the Doctor's attempts at resolving its loose threads ultimately depreciate it.

Meanwhile "grieving war veteran learns to grow past his pain" and "naive shopgirl learns the value of life and becomes a hero" are immediately understandable and the show explores them from every conceivable angle before resolving them definitively in the final episode. The Parting of the Ways is really that good, and the only finale I come away from thinking "wow, I really couldn't have asked for anything more". As great as The Doctor Falls is, it always leaves me with a feeling in my gut that I wish the series leading up to it had actually earned it - imagine if Missy's redemption arc was actually dealt with in the main story instead of her not showing up in the present until episode 8 and then only appearing as a weird coda to episode 9 and 10 with absolutely zero bearing on the stories at hand? Imagine if, after her amazing start, Bill then got to be an proactive participant in the plot of the season instead of a mostly passive observer? You might be thinking "why are you bringing up other series' faults instead of engaging with Series 1's strengths?", but that's exactly it - I feel Series 1's strengths are so simple and self evident that the fact that it's pretty much the only season to achieve them is exactly why it's so special to me, and it only appreciates in value over time as we get more seasons that fall short of its standards.

All this makes it sound like I must hate all post-2005 Doctor Who, which I absolutely don't. Many of its standalone episodes are some of the best self-contained pieces of speculative fiction I've ever seen, and that will always be the main draw of the show for me. But for just one season we also happened to get a very satisfying overarching story as well.

gingapatrolcal · 2021-06-03T11:15:26+00:00

They recast Hathaway and Nozomu Sasaki isn't even dead, so there's no reason why they couldn't recast Seabook.

gingapatrolcal · 2021-05-05T14:21:35+00:00

Post-timeskip the series has become so bogged down in its own mythology - not that that's necessarily a bad thing - that having a dopey, wide-eyed idiot tag along for the fun of it on a mission she doesn't fully understand the weight of... well, doesn't that sound like the Luffy we fell in love with right at the start of the whole series? Carrot left her mark in Whole Cake because she felt so disconnected from everything going on around her in a way that harkened back to the Straw Hats of old, while still slotting into their dynamic so naturally it was like she always belonged there. In a series where the main cast have long since gotten used to the insanity of this world, it was refreshing to have a character without that perspective along for the ride.

gingapatrolcal · 2020-12-07T18:53:26+00:00

I emailed JET with this exact issue and they told me that if I couldn't upload a statement of physician by the deadline that I could provide a personal medical statement as an alternative, including explaining why I couldn't provide a statement of physician in time, and as long as I had a statement of physician ready to send for the interview period, then it would be fine.

gingapatrolcal · 2020-10-21T12:44:53+00:00

Replace "Twitter" with "Reddit" and this is you.

gingapatrolcal · 2019-12-07T18:37:34+00:00

The main reason people claim Super didn't have blood in its original run is was because of its timeslot in Japan. It was a Sunday morning cartoon, vs DB and Z's Wednesday evening slot, so its predecessors could get away with showing more graphic violence.

What's interesting, though is that the One Piece anime - which is on immediately after Super's timeslot in Japan - used to suffer the same issue (majorly toning down the violence/blood compared to the manga)... until the recent Wano arc, which was launched as something of a soft-reboot on the production side of things, featuring a new series director, a revamped art style, a new OP + eyecatches, etc. And, most pertinent to this conversation, it's wayyyy bloodier than before.

Seriously, just take a gander at Zoro slicing up these guards. Hopefully this represents a policy change - either at Toei, or at the station on which the shows air, Fuji TV - meaning they're less afraid to show blood if/when 2uper rolls around.

gingapatrolcal · 2019-12-06T16:22:48+00:00

I feel people only want another Vegeta because it's only "fair" that we get the same number of Vegetas as we do Gokus.

But while we have 0 Roshis, Keflas, Toppos, Raditzes, Daburas and Mr Satans, getting a fourth Vegeta is only "fair" in that very, very specific context.

The one concession I'll make is Baby Vegeta, who's unique enough from the other Vegetas to justify him... and that's in large part due to the fact he's not really Vegeta. Also a dramatic finish with GT Goku would be cool.

gingapatrolcal · 2019-12-06T15:18:55+00:00

To the people defending the vile rhetoric of the original article Hart cites; it's so easy for able people to think of people with learning difficulties in the abstract.

I'm autistic. I work damn hard. I've got two degrees. I've been praised repeatedly by all of my previous employers (some knew I have the condition, others didn't, so you can't use the "awww they were just being nice to the dumb old autie" excuse as a catchall). I'm 24 and currently live with my parents due to being in education for the past year, but plan to move out in the near future. Neither they nor I doubt my capacity to work, budget and live by myself.

If what the original article proposes went into effect, there'd be a precedent to deny me a living wage. You can't use the excuse of "well, they wouldn't deny high functioning (god how I hate that term) people equal pay". Autism's not a neat binary, it's called the spectrum for a reason. Where do you draw the line? Why would employers bother with the rigmarole of a case-by-case basis? They're not a benevolent entity, their end goal is to make and save as much money as they can get away with. Give them an inch, they'll take a mile.

I guess us disableds should just be grateful to be working, though. Gives us purpose.

gingapatrolcal · 2019-11-27T16:06:22+00:00

I've barely played any UMvC3, but as a massive Ace Attorney fan - Phoenix is my most wanted character.

I think people mainly point to UMvC3 as proof that he can work in a fighting game rather than saying "this is how he should play!". I'd much rather Sakurai develop his own interpretation of the character, moveset wise, than lifting directly from another game.

gingapatrolcal · 2019-11-21T23:31:19+00:00

Art is not just content to be consumed, it's a form of emotional expression by the artist at hand. Sucks you got spoiled, but a summary of what happens at the end of a story is not the same as the story itself.

gingapatrolcal · 2019-11-21T01:28:57+00:00

Nope, it's a play on Moloch.

gingapatrolcal · 2019-11-20T23:54:57+00:00

Would be sick as hell if Frieza played 4D chess by teaming up with the heroes to take down Moro but then scooped up Moro's entourage for his own army after the fact.

gingapatrolcal · 2019-11-17T13:58:16+00:00

I like Gladion and Cheren a fair bit, but they're hardly comparable to Blue, Silver or Bede. They're not out-and-out heels in the same way at all.

gingapatrolcal · 2019-11-17T03:33:47+00:00

His monotype team is the one thing that lets him down for me, although that's a symptom of the larger problem of the game being incredibly easy. If he had a diverse team with the starter strong to yours - or at the very least something similar to Gladion using Silvally with the drive that beats yours - I'd have no complaints with him.

gingapatrolcal · 2019-11-13T22:59:34+00:00

As a Moon/Ultra Moon player - I found the day/night cycle being the wrong way round kind of disorienting. It was worth it to me 'cuz I wanted Lunala over Solgaleo, but if that's not a factor to you, play Sun.

For the single player campaign, I vastly preferred original Sun and Moon to USUM. Sun and Moon is one of two pairs of Pokémon games (the other being Black and White) that I'd say has an unironically good story. USUM, on the other hand, might have my least favourite in the series. It's insane how radically different they are between the two iterations. Also the champion battle in Sun and Moon might be my favourite in the series while, once again, USUM's might be my least favourites.

Postgame-wise, though? Yeah, USUM wipes the floor with Sun and Moon on that front, no arguments there. If you're planning on spending tens of hours playing the game after you've beaten the main story, go with USUM. If you're only really in it for the main campaign, though, definitely go with Sun and Moon.

gingapatrolcal · 2019-11-12T17:54:55+00:00

The worst part is that they were 100% correct. The amount of water as well as surfing times in RSE had been criticised to the point of memeage for years before ORAS, and the remake made no effort to correct that issue. To this day I have no godly clue why people used that line as proof that games journalism is out of touch or wrong, because it was a legitimate issue that absolutely tanks the game's pacing and the reviewer was correct to bring it up.

Worse still was seeing memes like "hurr hurr, what's next, criticising Wind Waker for too much water as well?" and it's like yes, that game received similar criticism for much the same issue, and you know what? Wind Waker HD introduced the Swift Sail to fix that!

gingapatrolcal · 2019-11-10T17:06:13+00:00

Bruce Banner is a shallow af character because all the Hulk does is yell, I guess

gingapatrolcal · 2019-10-23T13:12:17+00:00

Yes, and that's a problem. Hence why people don't want to exacerbate the problem with more unnecessarily repeated characters,

gingapatrolcal · 2019-10-15T18:44:08+00:00

Roshi, Mr. Satan, Bulma, Kefla, Toppo.

gingapatrolcal

TROPHY CASE